The Exorcist

Part I: The Beginning: Chapter Three

Chapter Three

Early on the morning of April 11, Chris made a telephone call to her doctor in Los Angeles to ask him for a referral to a local psychiatrist for Regan.

"Oh? What's wrong?"

Chris explained. Beginning on the day after Regan's birthday-and following Howard's failure to call-she had noticed a sudden and dramatic change in her daughter's behavior and disposition. Insomnia. Quarrelsome. Fits of temper. Kicked things. Threw things. Screamed. Wouldn't eat. In addition, her energy seemed abnormal. She was constantly moving, touching, turning; tapping; running and jumping about. Doing poorly with schoolwork. Fantasy playmate. Eccentric attention-getting tactics.

"Such as what?" the physician inquired.

Chris started with the rappings. Since the night she'd checked the attic, she'd heard them again on two occasions, and in both of these instances, she'd noticed, Regan was present in the room and the rappings would cease at the moment Chris entered. Secondly, she told him, Regan would "lose" things in the room: a dress; her toothbrush; books; her shoes. She complained about "somebody moving" her furniture. Finally, on the morning following the dinner at the White House, Chris saw Karl in Regan's bedroom pulling a bureau back into place from a spot that was halfway across the room. When Chris had inquired what he was doing, he repeated his former "Someone is funny," and refused to elaborate any further; but shortly thereafter, Chris had found Regan in the kitchen complaining that someone had moved all her furniture during the night when she was sleeping, and this was the incident, Chris explained, that had finally crystallized her suspicions. It was clearly her daughter who was doing it all.

"You mean somnambulism? She's doing it in her sleep?"

"No, Marc, she's doing it when she's awake. To get attention."

Chris mentioned the matter of the shaking bed, which had happened twice more, each time followed by Regan's insistence that she sleep with her mother.

"Well, that could be physical," the internist ventured.

"No, Marc, I didn't say that the bed was shaking; what I said was that Regan said it was shaking."

"Do you know that it wasn't?"

"No, not really."

"Well, it might be clonic spasms," he murmured.

"What was that?"

"Clonic spasm. Any temperature?"

"No. Listen, what do you think?" Chris asked him. "Should I take her to a shrink or what?"

"Chris, you mentioned her schoolwork. How is she doing with her math?"

"Why?"

"How's she doing?" he persisted.

"Just rotten. I mean, suddenly rotten."

"I see."

"Why'd you ask?" Chris repeated.

"Well, it's part of the syndrome."

"Syndrome? Syndrome of what?"

"Nothing serious. I'd rather not guess about it over the phone. Got a pencil?"

He wanted to give her the name of a Washington internist.

"Marc, can't you come out here and check her yourself?" She was remembering Jamie and his lingering infection. Chris's doctor at that time had prescribed a new, broad-spectrum antibiotic. Refilling a prescription at a local drugstore, the pharmacist was wary. "I don't want to alarm you, ma'am, but this ... well, it's quite new on the market, and they've found that in Georgia it's been causing aplastic anemia in young boys." Jamie. Gone. Dead. Ever since, Chris had never trusted doctors. Only Marc, and even that had taken years. "Marc, can't you?"